


Denouement

by thirty2flavors



Category: Broadchurch
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Gen, Post-Finale, Reunion Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-27
Updated: 2015-02-27
Packaged: 2018-03-15 10:16:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3443486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thirty2flavors/pseuds/thirty2flavors
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The trial ends, the Sandbrook case closes, and just like that, the dust in Ellie Miller’s whirlwind life begins to settle.</p><p> </p><p>Spoilers for the s2 finale.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Denouement

The trial ends, the Sandbrook case closes, and just like that, the dust in Ellie Miller’s whirlwind life begins to settle.

It takes only a gentle tug on a few strings to get her old job back, and then she’s DS Miller again, investigating petty theft, teenage vandalism and minor drug charges. It’s a bit like going from a thousand-piece puzzle of fall foliage to one of Fred’s picture books, and she wonders if a time will come when she itches to do more. For now, though, she focuses on the welcome relief not having to think about dead children or missing bodies.

On Ellie’s first day back in the office, the new DI brings in a box of donuts for everyone to share. As she carries a Boston creme to her desk, she finds herself thinking wistfully of salad.

Remarkably, the Latimers and the Millers grow closer than ever, driven by defiance and a common grief. Beth stands at the centre of it like the force of gravity, her unbridled fury turning into a righteous determination to thrive, as though being happy is the greatest act of spite she can think of in an uncaring universe.

Ellie thinks Beth must be the strongest person she’ll ever meet.

There’s still Joe, looming like a storm cloud on the far horizon. She changes every lock in the house and gets new, unlisted phone numbers for her and Tom. Most days, Ellie can convince herself that the threat of her, and Mark, and Beth will be enough to keep him at bay. On the other days, she sleeps lightly, and wonders about divorces, custody battles, and the safety of the children in Sheffield.

Slowly, improbably, life goes on.

Three months trickle by, and Ellie finds herself home alone with Fred one night. Tom’s gone off with Olly to watch the latest abominable superhero movie, and the house is quiet, save for the murmur of a telly programme she isn’t really watching and the wheels of Fred’s plastic car being pushed up and down the carpet.

She knows she ought to relish the peace; it’s a rare commodity for a working single mother of two. But it’s in moments like these where her mind starts to wander, when she can get lost down the rabbit hole of self-pity and stress. She reaches for her mobile and scrolls through her contact list, idly searching for entertainment, when her thumb hovers over a number and she pauses, chewing the inside of her lip. It’s one she ought to have deleted some time ago, and yet…

She hesitates, staring at the screen. “What d’you think, Freddie? Should I give it a go?”

Fred rams his toy car into his toy firetruck. Ellie takes it as affirmation, and presses _call_. The line rings three times, four times, and she’s about to accept defeat (or perhaps her salvation from embarrassment) when:

“What?” barks Alec Hardy on the other end.

It’s an irritable, impatient way to answer a phone call, and Ellie smiles.

“Well, you’ve not changed, then,” she says.

“ _Miller?_ ” The surprise sounds genuine, but she’s not sure what to make of it.

“What, barely three months and I’m already off your phone? Charming.”

She’s teasing, but her stomach sinks. Perhaps this was a bad idea. The last thing she wants, on top of everything else, is to earn a reputation as a woman who can’t let go.

“You are in my phone,” he says bluntly, though she thinks she hears the seed of amusement buried underneath. “This isn’t your number.”

“Oh. Right. New phone.” She winces at the empty room. _Well. Shit._ “How’s Aylesbury?”

The amount of suspicion in his voice almost makes her laugh.  “How do you know where I am?”

“I’m a detective! And a bloody good one.” She pauses. “Plus I may have asked Tess.”

“ _What_?” He sounds almost genuinely alarmed this time. “Why were you talking to her?”

She smirks. “Well, some people keep in touch with each other after they solve a big case.”

It’s a bit of a lie: she’s spoken to Tess precisely twice in the last three months, once to follow up on the Sandbrook case, once to exchange pleasantries. But it gets the point across.

“You got a new phone,” he says pointedly.

“You’d have known that earlier if you’d ever tried to call the old one,” she retorts, but as silence settles between them she feels a niggle of guilt. He’s right; it’s not as if she’d reached out, either. As much of that’s on her head as it is on his.

Then again, she’s not the one who moved out of Broadchurch as fast as possible.

“What do you want, Miller?” he asks eventually. Concern creeps its way into his voice. “Something wrong?”

“No.” She leans back against the sofa, looking down at her socks. “Everything’s sort of all right, actually.” She picks up one of Fred’s toys between her feet and bounces it up and down for his amusement. “Considering.”

“Oh. Good.”

The unasked question lingers in the air - _then why did you call?_ \- and she wonders why Hardy imagines only a crisis would push her to call him, and then what sort of crisis he thinks he himself would be uniquely suited to handle.

“What about you, then?” She pictures him sitting at the table in that little blue house on the water. It’s not an accurate image, not anymore, but it makes her smile. “Hitting the clubs every night with that new heart of yours?”

“It’s not a new heart,” he objects, like he’s troubled by her misunderstanding of medical procedure. “And... it’s fine. I’m fine.”

He says “fine” like Tom sometimes does, where she’s not sure if it means _fine, really_ , or _not at all fine_ , but either way it means _stop asking_. She’s wondered before what it must be like for him to finally be able to walk away from Pippa Gillespie and Lisa Newberry. It ought to be freeing, but when you’ve defined yourself by one thing for so long, it must be strange to lose it. Where do you go from there?

“Good,” she echos. She hesitates a second longer, but - oh, to hell with it, she’s already dialled, anyway. “Actually I was calling ‘cause next weekend, the long weekend, Beth’s organizing this whole big picnic in that field behind the house - wants to raise money in Danny’s name - and anyway, I thought you might like to come.”

There’s a pause as he mentally rifles through her rambling. “Why?”

Ellie huffs. If at any point in the last three months she’s forgotten how infuriating he can be, she’s remembering now. “God, I don’t know, because I stupidly thought maybe you get tired of sitting in your room listening to Leonard Cohen and staring at the wall—”

“No,” he cuts her off, “I mean, why would…” He trails off, trying to play the rest of the sentence off as casual. “Why would you want me there?”

“There’s another murder we need you to solve,” she deadpans. “Christ, what do you think?” But she remembers the speech he’d given Lee - _love’s all-encompassing when you’re in it_ \- and she takes pity on him. “You’ve only been living in Aylesbury for a couple months, so by my estimation you probably only know about one other person’s name. Thought it might be nice to see some friendly faces.”

“The friendly faces of Broadchurch?”  he repeats incredulously, but she recognizes the familiar needling tone for what it is and grins.

“Well, friendly face. I can guarantee one.” She waits just long enough for the panic to set in, then says, “Fred’s happy to see anyone.”

Fred rams his firetruck into the base of the television stand in agreement.

On the other end of the line, Hardy hesitates. “I don’t know, Miller.”

Her heart sinks a little, but among the many things she’s learned in the past few months is that persistence pays off when dealing with a stubborn arse. “Your social calendar all booked up, then?”

“Miller—”

“Are you seeing Daisy?” She tells herself she won’t be disappointed if the answer is ‘yes’. He’s missed enough of his daughter’s life; of course he wouldn’t want to miss more. She wouldn’t expect him to.

But instead he says, “No. No, actually, she’s going away with her friends that weekend.”

“Right. So you're free, then.”

He sucks in a breath, and she imagines he’s running through his mental rolodex of excuses. _Can’t, I’m listening to six straight hours of Radio 4. Can’t, I have to iron my only shirt. Can’t, I accidentally bought a razor and now I have to dispose of it immediately._

“If you don’t want to stay at the Traders’,” she carries on, “you can sleep on my sofa. It’s quite comfy and I’ve got plenty of sheets.”

“Well…" He draws it out. "All right,” he concedes, finally. “Okay. Yeah. That’ll be.... nice.”

“Good.” A smug and satisfied smile blooms across her face. “And don’t buy the whole bloody store this time, a bottle of wine is good.”

“Right.” She can hear the nod, can picture the way he’d awkwardly avoid her eyes as he said it. “Got it. See you then, Miller.”

He hangs up without waiting for a response, but by now she’s known him too long to be surprised or offended. Instead she revels in the small victory and sets her phone down, grinning as she slides off the couch to sit on the floor across from Fred. She leans forward, elbows on her thighs, until she and Fred are nearly eye level.

“Uncle Alec’s gonna come visit us next weekend,” she tells him. “That’ll be nice, hey, Fred?”

Undoubtedly delighted by her proximity more than her message, Fred beams at her, squeals out a giggle and holds up his firetruck. Ellie takes it in one hand, using her free one to ruffle his curls before she stretches to kiss him on the forehead.

“Yeah,” she tells him. “Me too.”


End file.
